AI Meeting Assistant Data Retention: What Happens to Your Recordings After 90 Days?

When you delete a meeting recording from your AI assistant, is it really gone?

Most professionals assume that when they delete a transcript or cancel their subscription, their sensitive meeting data disappears. The reality is far more concerning. After analyzing the data retention policies of the top AI meeting assistants, we discovered that most platforms retain your recordings, transcripts, and voice data far longer than you'd expect—and some keep it indefinitely.

If you've ever discussed confidential business strategy, client information, financial data, or personal matters in a meeting recorded by an AI assistant, you need to understand exactly how long that data persists in someone else's database.

The Data Retention Reality: A Platform-by-Platform Breakdown

We analyzed the privacy policies and data retention terms of the most popular AI meeting assistants. Here's what actually happens to your meeting recordings:

What "Backup Systems" Really Means

Notice how most platforms mention "backup systems" or "reasonable time" for deletion? According to cloud infrastructure experts, backup systems can retain data for 30-180 days depending on the backup schedule. This means your "deleted" meeting could exist in multiple backup snapshots across different servers for months.

The GDPR Problem: Why "Reasonable Time" Isn't Good Enough

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has strict requirements about data retention. Article 17 of the GDPR grants individuals the "right to erasure" (also called the "right to be forgotten"), which requires companies to delete personal data "without undue delay" when requested.

But what constitutes "undue delay"? The regulation doesn't specify exact timeframes, which is why many companies interpret it liberally. Data protection authorities generally expect deletion within one month, but backup systems complicate this timeline.

The Backup System Loophole

Most cloud AI services cite "backup systems" as justification for extended retention. While GDPR Recital 49 acknowledges that backups may temporarily prevent immediate deletion, it requires companies to implement systems that can remove data from backups "as soon as reasonably possible."

The problem? Few AI meeting assistant providers have invested in backup systems designed for GDPR compliance. Traditional backup architectures weren't built for selective data deletion, which means your meeting recording might sit in multiple backup snapshots for months.

What Happens to Your Data When You Cancel Your Subscription?

This is where things get even murkier. We contacted customer support for several major AI meeting platforms asking what happens to meeting recordings after account cancellation. The responses were concerning:

Otter.ai's Retention After Cancellation

According to their terms, Otter.ai retains your data for a "reasonable period" after account closure to "prevent fraud" and "comply with legal obligations." In practice, this appears to be at least 90 days, though the policy doesn't specify a maximum retention period.

More troubling: Otter.ai's policy states that content used to train their AI models before deletion may remain in their systems indefinitely, as it becomes "aggregated and anonymized." But voice data and meeting transcripts contain uniquely identifying information that's difficult to truly anonymize.

Fireflies.ai's Cloud Storage Persistence

Fireflies.ai's privacy policy indicates that recordings are stored "until you delete them or your account." However, they also state that deleted data may remain in "backup copies for a reasonable period of time." Customer support confirmed this typically means 30-90 days.

For enterprise customers, retention periods may be even longer depending on the contract. Some enterprise agreements require data retention for audit purposes, meaning your recordings could persist for years after you've left the company.

Zoom's Complex Retention Matrix

Zoom's AI Companion complicates matters because retention depends on whether you're using their cloud storage or local storage. Zoom's privacy policy indicates cloud recordings are retained based on account type and admin settings, but they may keep "de-identified data" for analytics purposes indefinitely.

According to Bloomberg's investigation into Zoom's AI policies, the company updated its terms in 2024 to clarify that customer content wouldn't be used for AI training without consent—but only after significant backlash. The incident highlights how quickly policies can change.

The Training Data Question: Is Your Meeting Teaching Someone's AI?

Perhaps the most concerning aspect of data retention is what happens to your meetings while they're stored. Several AI meeting platforms have faced scrutiny over using customer recordings to improve their AI models.

How AI Training Works

AI transcription systems improve through exposure to diverse audio samples. Your meeting recordings—with their unique accents, industry jargon, and acoustic environments—are valuable training data. Unless a platform explicitly prohibits it, your recordings may contribute to their AI development.

As Wired reported in their investigation of AI training practices, many "free" AI services generate value by using customer data to improve their models. The better their AI gets, the more competitive their product becomes—funded by your confidential meetings.

The "Aggregated and Anonymized" Myth

Companies often claim that data used for AI training is "aggregated and anonymized," suggesting it can't be traced back to you. Research shows this is harder than it sounds. A study published in Nature demonstrated that 99.98% of Americans could be re-identified from anonymized datasets using just 15 demographic attributes.

Meeting transcripts contain far more than 15 identifying attributes. They include your voice characteristics, speech patterns, vocabulary, the names of colleagues and clients, project details, and countless contextual clues. True anonymization is nearly impossible.

HIPAA and Financial Compliance: When Retention Becomes Liability

For healthcare providers and financial services firms, extended data retention isn't just a privacy concern—it's a compliance violation.

HIPAA's Minimum Necessary Standard

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires covered entities to limit the collection, use, and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI) to the "minimum necessary" to accomplish the intended purpose.

If your AI meeting assistant retains patient discussions for 90+ days in backup systems after deletion, you're violating the minimum necessary standard. According to HHS guidance on the minimum necessary requirement, you must be able to justify every instance where PHI is retained.

Financial Services and Data Retention

Financial institutions face similar constraints under regulations like SOX, GLBA, and SEC rules. While some financial data must be retained for specific periods, client discussions and internal strategy meetings shouldn't persist indefinitely in third-party systems.

The risk is particularly acute because financial services are prime targets for data breaches. Every day your sensitive meetings sit in a cloud database is another day they could be compromised.

The On-Device Alternative: Zero Retention Risk

There's a fundamentally different approach to AI meeting assistance that eliminates data retention concerns entirely: on-device processing.

How On-Device AI Works

On-device AI processes your meeting audio locally on your iPhone or Mac using Apple's Neural Engine. The audio never leaves your device, which means:

• No cloud upload: Your meetings never touch external servers
• Instant deletion: When you delete a recording, it's immediately gone—no backups, no retention period
• No training data: Your meetings can't train someone else's AI because they're never shared
• True privacy: You have complete control over your data's entire lifecycle

Apple's Privacy Architecture

Apple has invested heavily in on-device AI capabilities specifically to address privacy concerns. Their Speech Recognition API, which Basil AI uses, processes audio entirely locally using the Neural Engine built into modern iPhones and Macs.

As Apple's privacy documentation explains, on-device processing means "what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone." There's no data retention policy to worry about because there's no data retention, period.

Compliance Through Architecture

On-device processing achieves compliance through architecture rather than policy. You don't have to trust a privacy policy or hope a company honors its deletion promises—the technology itself prevents data retention.

For GDPR, this means automatic compliance with data minimization (Article 5) and storage limitation principles. For HIPAA, it means PHI never leaves your control. For financial services, it means zero third-party risk.

Questions to Ask Your AI Meeting Assistant Provider

If you're currently using or evaluating a cloud-based AI meeting assistant, here are essential questions to ask:

1. How long do you retain recordings after I delete them? Get a specific number, not "reasonable time."
2. How many backup copies exist, and when are they purged? Understand the full retention timeline.
3. Do you use my recordings to train AI models? Get explicit confirmation in writing.
4. What happens if I cancel my subscription? Clarify post-cancellation retention.
5. Where are my recordings physically stored? Understand geographic data location for compliance.
6. Who has access to my recordings? Including employees, contractors, and third parties.
7. How do you handle data breach notifications? What's your incident response timeline?
8. Can you provide documented evidence of deletion? Request deletion certificates for compliance records.

If the answers to these questions make you uncomfortable, it's time to reconsider your meeting transcription strategy.

The Path Forward: Privacy by Design

Data retention policies exist because cloud architecture requires them. When your meetings are processed on external servers, someone has to define retention periods, backup schedules, and deletion procedures. Complexity creates risk.

On-device AI offers a simpler model: your data never leaves your control, so retention policies become irrelevant. You don't need to trust a company's promises or parse their privacy policy—the architecture itself ensures your meetings remain private.

As AI becomes more integrated into our professional lives, the question isn't just "how long will you keep my data?" but "why does my data need to leave my device in the first place?"

For most professionals, the answer is: it doesn't.